The history of modern Japanese art has a hierarchy of narratives. As in the West, at the top is the story of the avant-garde. This is a tale of trail-blazing artists taking trips to foreign locales, usually Paris, and bringing back radical foreign styles in their suitcases.
Another important storyline is the rejection of the influx of foreign styles by the establishment of the self-consciously Japanese art form called nihonga (Japanese-style painting). A third looks at the subtle way these two movements interacted with each other. Anything that falls outside these three main narratives, such as the work of the Yokohama-based artist, Takanori Kinoshita, now on display at the Yokohama Museum of Art, tends to be sidelined.
"You are the first newspaper to cover the exhibition," says the show's curator, Tomoh Kashiwagi, with a little surprise.